Comedy

It’s hard not to cut Jimmy Fallon some slack — and not just because he plays the loveÂable bloke so well in his hoodie and Pumas.

The former “Saturday Night Live” star, the recently anointed replacement for CoÂnan O’Brien on “Late Night” in ’09, knows that part of his new job will require he perÂform monologues. No amount of
“Weekend Update” appearÂances or movies co-starring Queen Latifah or Drew BarryÂmore can prep him for workÂing an audience every week night.

In taking the stage far away from the scrutinizing eyes of New York City or Los Angeles audiences at the San Jose ImÂprov on Thursday, Fallon, 33, continues to season himself for his future hosting duties. (He also made a little-publiÂcized Improv appearance opening for Owen Benjamin in February 2008.) The sketch comedy veteran’s mixed, spoÂradically funny set was the first in a four-night run filling the middle slot between comÂics Wayne Federman and Mo Mandel.

Opening with his guitar in hand, Fallon’s stand-up rouÂtine hasn’t moved far beyond the ragamuffin troubadour persona that has paid him divÂidends on everything from his 2002 comedy disc “”The BathÂroom Wall” to his hosting of the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards. He opened his 25-minute set with “Car Wash for Peace” and closed it with a couple of other satirical ditÂties, leaving little room for performing actually stand-up material.

Aside from his general likÂability, Fallon’s strength has always been his ability to lamÂpoon pop culture, such as a bit about “Extreme Makeover Home Edition” host Ty PenÂnington or his somewhat
shameful admission of his love for Disney’s “High School Musical.” He called into quesÂtion the teen phenomenon’s authenticity because it depicts a school where “everyone’s singing and dancing and no one’s getting their asses kicked.”

Fallon returned to the stage for another 10 minutes at the close of the show, playfully riffÂing with a piano-playing FedÂerman. The highlight of his set, and the entire evening, was his convincing demonÂstration of how seemingly evÂery silly ’80s pop hit — from “The Safety Dance,” by Men
Without Hats, to “”Never Gonna Give You Up,” by Rick Astley — can be sung over “U Can’t Touch This,” by MC Hammer. As amusing as it was to get Rick-rolled, it came off as little more than a party gag.

The TV-host-in-training still needs to hone his stand-up skills, but he at least has a defÂinite persona that should lend itself to fronting a talk show. Everyone from David LetterÂman to Jay Leno initially struggled when they landed their own gabfests. When O’Brien replaced LetÂterman on “Late Night” in 1993, his claim to fame was that he had worked as the exÂecutive producer of “The
Simpsons.” Perhaps Fallon can take heart in the knowlÂedge that like O’Brien, he also cut his performance teeth as a member of the Groundlings, the Los Angeles-based ImÂprov troupe.

Fallon performs with Federman and Mandel at 8 and 10 p.m. tonight, 7 and 9 p.m. Saturday, and 7 p.m. June 22 at the Improv, 62 S. Second St., San Jose; $25; (408) 280-7475, www.improv.com.

MAMMA MIA! ABBA-heads and other MAMMA MIA junkies (yes, mom I mean you) won’t want to miss this sneak peekÂ of Meryl Streep breaking into song in the most-anticipated chick flick sinceÂ “Sex and the City.” This is the go-to galpal event of the summer, people. Check it out andÂ hollerÂ if you think this movie is going to make some serious money, money, money or if it’s destined to beÂ a totalÂ Waterloo. (Although frankly any movie that stars both Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth is pretty much a gimme, no?)

A woman lies on a stretcher in the dark, her face illuminated by a single shaft of light as she wrestles with the demons of war. Jenny Sutter (Gwendolyn Mulamba) has returned from Iraq a broken woman. Beautifully directed by Jessica Thebus, Julie Marie Myatt’s sublime new play, which made its world premiere in Ashland before transferring to the Kennedy Center, does not waste words describing the way Jenny’s injury has impacted her sense of self. We merely watch her struggle to pull a pair of jeans up over her false leg and we know all there is to know. Jenny has lost more than a limb in Iraq. She has lost her peace of mind, her will to live, her belief in human nature.Â Â She’s only 30 but she’s already spent. Being a single mom and an African-American only heightens her sense of isolation. Even in a crowd of people, Jenny feels all alone. Camped out a bus-stop unable to bring herself to go home to her family, she meets a free-spirit who changes her life. That’s Lou (the mesmerizing Kate Mulligan) a force of nature with a weakness for addiction (booze, drugs, men, whatever’s handy, really) and a soft spot for lost souls. She takes Jenny along to Slab City, where we see that veterans are not the only Americans who feel dispossessed in this harsh social and economic environment. There is more than one front in this war.Â Meet Donald (a wry Gregory Linington) a thoroughly disenfranchised young man who confronts Jenny about the uselessness of the war. His nihilism drives everyone way. Almost. Nothing can dampen Buddy (David Kelly) the gentle soul who preaches to the camp every morning and tries to rescue Lou’s spirit every night. Here in this motley camp of strangers craving freedom from convention and redemption from their pasts, Jenny grapples with the disorientation, rage and pain of coming home. Myatt strikes at the core of race and class and alienation in America today without losing the richness of character and wryness of insight that makes her writing sing in the ear. This is political theater at its best, theater where the characters suck us into theirÂ worldÂ so powerfully that the playÂ echoes inÂ our hearts as well as in our heads.

I was jolted out of the fog of multitasking this morning when I opened my mail and found a new “Wacky Races” game from Eidos Interactive — one version for the Wii, another for the DS. Wasn’t on my radar (there just too many things to track), but I’m delighted.

I have no idea if the game is any good, but the concept is irresistible. It taps into my 1960s nostalgia, plus a nice gaming memory.

Here’s the nostalgia part (I’m stealing from the capsule history I provided in an article eight years ago): Among the special TV shows of the late 1960s and early 1970s were three Hanna-Barbera cartoons: ”The Wacky Races,” ”The Perils of Penelope Pitstop” and ”Dastardly and Muttley.” There’s no debating their distinction. Ask anyone who was old enough to turn on a TV set back then.

I believe that as much now as I did then. And in 2000, the news hook for that nostalgia was the release of some “Wacky Races” games that included one for the Sega Dreamcast. I played it relentlessly — it couldn’t have been THAT good — because of my fondness for the characters.

Penelope. The Slag Brothers in their Boulder-Mobile. Rufus Ruffcut and Sawtooth in their Buzz Wagon. Dick Dastardly and Muttley’s Mean Machine. God bless Warner Bros. Interactive and the license it granted Eidos (although if the game proves terrible, this post will go down as asininely premature).

I asked in my earlier post today what the time tradeoff would be for people who have become instantly addicted to the Spore Creature Creator. For me, the “Wacky Races” lure is at least temporarily so powerful that Spore will have to pay the price. My creature will languish tonight while I take a detour with Peter Perfect and his Turbo Terrific. Wikipedia has a fun “Wacky Races” history, fyi.

Don’t let it get you down if you’re going to miss Black. You can get a great sampling of “The Daily Show” regularÂ in “Me of Little Faith” (Riverhead, 256 pp. $24.95), his rant fest that came out on June 3.

“Every page in this book has the potential to offend someone,Â somewhere, in perpetuity, throughout the universe,” BlackÂ promises in print.

The New Kids on the BlockÂ are back with a new video featuring the group’sÂ original members,Â Jonathan Knight (40), Donnie Wahlberg (38),Â Danny Wood (38), Knight’s brother, Jordan (37) and the youngest kid,Â Joey McIntyre, (35).

The musicÂ video, “Summertime,” will be the first new music NKOTB has recorded since the group disbanded in 1994.

In a publishedÂ interviewÂ on MercuryNews.com,Â Wahlberg told the Associated press that he had “no interest going out on a nostalgia tour and singing the same material.”

FYI: NKOTB have planned a stop in San Jose on October 10, 2008 as part of their North American tour.

[photopress:Dana_Gould_1_2.gif,thumb,alignright]You’re probably thinking that the name Dana Gould sounds vaguely familiar, that he’s probably the fat guy from “Oceans 13” who used to be married the Barbra Streisand.

Gould, who performs tonight through Saturday at the San Jose Improv, is in fact one of the most consistently funny comedians around. The guy has never let me down.

I first heard about him some 14 years ago when Ben Stiller was recommending his favorite comics. Gould, who appeared a few times with Stiller, Janeane Garofalo and Bob Odenkirk on TV’s “The Ben Stiller Show,” was part of the alternative comedy scene in Los Angeles. (He was also part of the vibrant San Francisco stand-up community before that). Gould was a staff writer on “The Simpsons” for seven years and more recently made a memorable appearance in “The Aristocrats.”

On stage, Gould is a jumble of comedic tension that could only come out of the crucible that is a repressed Irish Catholic household. (Hey, I’m just going by what he’s revealed in his routine.) The guy is known to digress and drag the audience down some topical rabbit hole before delivery a killer punch line. To get a taste of his stage persona, check outÂ this old clip of him recounting an encounter with Bob Hopethis old clip from 1995 where he recounts meeting Bob Hope.

If you find that you are so enamored with Gould that you think to yourself, “Hey, what if the guy could somehow provide color commentary for, oh, I dunno, some masked Mexican wrestlers?” Well, the guy can: Later this month, Gould will join MC Blaine Capatch (another vet of the SF comedy scene) for Lucha VaVOOM, a campy, vaudeville-style grab bag of lucha libre, burlesque and comedy. The show is a hoot, but I’ll save the gorey details for a future blog item.

Roger Rees, whom a generation of TV addicts know best as the dashing cad Robin Colcord (the one who always broke Rebecca’s heart) on “Cheers,” is coming to ACT in SF this summer with his 90-minute bardathon “What You Will.”Â Â AÂ mashup of the hysterical and the historical, it’s a fast-paced farce on Shakespearean themes where the soliloquies hit the fan.

But make no mistake, the celebrated actor is no schlub in the iambic pentameter department. After all, he’s a Royal Shakespeare Company alum and a Tony winner for “The Life and Adventures of NicholasÂ Nickleby,” the Dickens’ epic to which culture vultures fondly refer as “Nick/Nick.”Â The last time he playedÂ San Francisco was directing Bebe Neuwirth’s delish “Here Lies Jenny” at the Post Street Theatre.

Oh, yeah and he’s also been spotted on “The West Wing” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”So, hopefully all’s well that ends well.

Actually you’re a total head-case: You’re poor, you have no self-confidence and there’s a rabid barking dog where your sense of self should be. All of which is why, honestly, you really ought to join “The Group,” in its world premiere at San Francisco’s Climate Theater.

For a limited time only (with a low, low fee), you too can sit in the power circle wearing headphones while your group “leader” chirps in your ear about the power of positive thinking, listening to your inner giraffe (really!) and realizing that resistance is futile (oh, wait maybe that’s the Borg).

Anyway, deep thoughts run smack into lowered expectations in this impudent audio performance piece, which mines the headphones-bound strategy of Chris Hardman’s Antenna Theater productions to keep us safe in our own little thought bubbles while debunking the whole “Empowerment Workshop” phenomenon big-time.

One of the cleverest aspects of the witty, 60-minute Dodeska Performance Ensemble piece is not taking itself too seriously while still making stinging observations about America’s obsession with the self-help movement. It nails our insatiable appetite to consume enlightenment as if it were Skittles – sugary, cheap, bite-size and disposable. Gimme, gimme.

Check out the next EYE section for a full review, but know this now: From est to “The Secret,” this is a playful lampoon of “healing philosophies,” subtitled “Exploring the Negative Potential of Positive Thinking.” Writer-director Robert Quillen Camp slyly pokes fun at reducing the human experience to one-size-fits-all platitudes and besmirching belief systems with “cash-only” workshops. We are sometimes so desperate to believe that something, anything, can give our lives meaning that we are willing to purchase our way to inner peace: You’ve got to pay to play, if you want to win big at the roulette wheel of nirvana, baby.

Dudes, how did I miss this? The blogosphere is apparently alight with gossip that Carrie Fisher may have hooked up with Harrison Ford while filming “Star Wars” back in the day. New York Post’s Page Six gossip column has apparently reported that Fisher has hinted around about some serious intergalactic snuggle bunnies.

“I had a crush on Harrison for sure. Harrison is great fun when he’s had a few drinks…” Laughing and smiling, Fisher added, “I’m going to get in so much trouble … Once I left the room and came back and he was in the closet not wearing a lot of clothes.”

Oh, no she didn’t! I am obviously going to have hit Princess Leia up for details when she comes to town with her hit solo “Wishful Drinking.”